Bangkok Dangerous

(2008) dir. Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pangviewed: 02/06/09

It’s not often that I am prescient. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t have a lot of good documentation to prove out my predictions. I saw the original Bangkok Dangerous (1999) a couple of years back as I was hearing of the American re-make of the film with Nicolas Cage as the star. I liked the original and postulated on the Pang Brothers cash in in Hollywood. Here it is.

For those that know me, it won’t be surprising to hear me say that I have a thing for Nicolas Cage movies. I used to like him genuinely, in his early work, but now, in his later period, an aging Hollywood action-star among other things, he gets a lot of these seriously B-movie grade films to work in. And the thing is, as bad as the films are, he certainly keeps them entertaining somehow.

But in Bangkok Dangerous, he’s striving a bit against himself. Age is not treating his never quite handsome good looks too kindly. His face is interesting, but with his long hair and receding hairline, it’s harder to imagine some gorgeous deaf-mute shop girl falling for such a big lug.

See they did change the story to an extent. They’d have to you would imagine. And it’s certainly not as good as the original. Cage is still a hit man and the story goes awry in a turn directly from the original. But there is something a little more poetic in the deaf-mute hitman who is isolated from life than the big American soft-spoken badass.

The most hilarious scene is when Cage is learning the girl’s name, which means “rain” and which she teaches him to “say” in sign language. Cage gives it his best go, but it’s pretty silly. I can’t imitate it in words, so if you want to find out, you’ll have to rent it.

Bangkok Dangerous fits well into my Nicolas Cage bad movie list. But it’s not so bad. It’s enjoyable enough. Why complain when I actually like this stuff?